Burris FastFire II Sight
on the Tactical Solutions Ruger Mk1

I've had some CCI/Blazer .22LR ammo sitting on the shelf for a while. The
brick (10 boxes of 50 rounds) displays a price tag of $10.99. I tried some
of it over the chronograph with the start screen located 10' from the muzzle.
The 10 shot group averaged 1059 FPS with a StdDev of 42.1 FPS. (above target) Another 10
shot group, this time using Federal Bulk Pack ammo, was just a bit faster at
1089 FPS with a StdDev of 26.2 FPS.

I've been using my new CED M2 chronograph
for the past several trips to the range. My PACT chronograph, after years
of use, started giving me some problems. Rather than deal with trying to
get it fixed, I opted to try the CED M2. So far, I've been very impressed
with it. The display on the M2 is indicating a 2.0 foot screen spacing, 10
shots fired, and an average velocity of 1059 feet per second.

While this has nothing to do with the Burris FastFire II sight, as I was packing
up my gear at the range, I noticed the Mark 1's powder/bullet lube pattern on
the the crown of the barrel. While I'm not sure if it is true or not, I
once read that the pattern should be symmetrical around the crown. This
supposedly indicates that the bullet leaving the barrel has even pressure behind
it and so the bullet is traveling true and not getting tipped to one side right
at the muzzle. Not sure if this is true or not, but it seems to make
sense. I sure can't argue the fact that the Mark 1 shoot very nicely with
the Tactical Solutions barrel on it.

Burris now makes a FastFire III that features a few improvements over my model.
The FastFire III is offered with either a 3 or 8 MOA dot. The windage and
elevation adjustments no longer requires the little screwdriver that comes with
the FastFire II model. The power switch has provides for 3 brightness
levels as well as an automatic setting. Last but not least, the battery
can be changed without removing the sight from the rail. There are a
couple of other changes but these are a few I remember from my last visit to the
Burris web site.

So that is about it. The FastFire II seems to work well with the Picatinny
rail on the Tactical Solutions barrel for the Ruger Mark 1. I look forward
to more sessions at the range.

Update: 02/13/2013

A couple of weeks ago, I was showing this write-up to a friend. As I did,
I noticed a screw was missing from the FastFire II from the area indicated in
red in the photo. Sure enough when I got home and examined the sight, the
screw was missing and the other screw wasn't really keeping things in place
either. I was, and still am, clueless as to what happened to cause the
problem.

A couple of days later, I sent Burris customer support an e-mail and asked how
much a couple of screws would cost. The customer service manager responded
that two had been shipped out that day. Great service! A few days
later, they arrived at the house and I waited until the weekend to take care of
the sight. (I also needed some time to find that tiny little set of
screwdrivers that were lurking somewhere around my office or out in the garage.)

Saturday afternoon arrived and I cleared a spot on my reloading bench to work
at. I quickly discovered that neither of the screw holes would retain the
new screws.

I penned yet another e-mail to the folks at Burris to enquire as to the cost of
having my FastFire II repaired. Again, the manager responded and
instructed me to send it in. I downloaded a return form from their web
site, filled it out, and got the package headed their way. Just nine days
later, I had a new in the box FastFire II with paperwork indicating it had been
replaced under warranty. I had mentioned in my e-mail that this sight
was several years old and after receiving the replacement, checked my original
owner's manual which stated there was a one year warranty on the sight
since it had electronics in it. Since it wasn't an electronics issues,
they may have decided it was a warranty fix. Regardless of their
reasoning, it was replaced by Burris.

So....a big shout out to the folks at Burris for standing behind their product
even when they didn't have to do so. It says a lot about the company, in
my opinion.